i viking - Norse who went plundering
In this year dire portents appeared over Northumbria and sorely frightened the inhabitants. They consisted of immense whirlwinds and flashes of lightning, and fiery dragons were seen flying in the air. A great famine followed soon upon these signs, and a little after that in the same year on the ides of June the harrying heathen destroyed God's church on Lindisfarne by rapine and slaughter. --Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, 793
Simon of Durham witnessed this attack on the monastery at Lindisfarne, the earliest recorded Norse raid. "They came to the church of Lindisfarne, laid everything waste with grievous plundering, trampled the holy places with polluted feet, dug up the altars and seized all the treasures of the holy church. They killed some of the brothers; some they took away with them in fetters; many they drove out, naked and loaded with insults; and some they drowned in the sea."
When the news reached Charlemagne's court, Alcuin of York - a noted cleric - quoted a warning from Jeremiah (Chapter 1: Verse 14). "Then the Lord said unto me, Out of the North an evil shall break forth upon all the inhabitants of the land." Alcuin and others believed God sent the viking pirates as divine instruments of retribution for Christians' sins.
Raids were commonplace among the Norse. They outfitted ships, plundered towns and monasteries, and sought adventure. Although they pursued far more peaceful pursuits much of the time, the summers saw them go í víking, plundering. Among the treasures sought were the jeweled covers of illuminated manuscripts, gold crucifixes, and silver chalices. Monasteries were particular favorites because of their remoteness, nearness to water, and artisans. When they took captives, the pirates either held them for ransom or sold them into slavery.
Norse pirates first raided Iona, an island off the west coast of Scotland, in 795. They came again in 802 and 806, a raid that ended with the slaying of sixty-eight monks and laymen. Walafrid Strabo, the abbot of Reichenau (Germany), wrote a detailed account of an Irish warrior and aristocrat who pledged his life to God. Somehow Blathmac knew the pirates would raid the monastery in 825 and told those not of stout heart to flee. The next morning the Norse slayed all those who remained except Blathmac. If he told them where Columba's shrine was, they would spare his life. He refused and they tore him limb from limb.
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